The man died yesterday and has been today's news. I am no going to write much about it but I need to acknowledge that he was a rather poor politician, a maybe not so great human being, but one of the most stupendous writers ever. I have already written in 2007 a homage to Cien Años de Soledad, mentioning Love in the Time of Cholera and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, three essential books, to which if you are Latino American you should also add El General en su Laberinto.
One thing I have noticed it is the attacks made against him for his friendship for Fidel Castro. I want to make two comments on that.
First, Garcia Marquez could not let go from a revolution that was still "justifiable" in the 60ies. Castro offered him to direct a new style of news agency at a time he had not written yet 100 Years. That all of this went down the drain is another story. The fact of the matter is that in his old age Garcia Marquez moved to Mexico, not to Havana. And he never embraced Chavez. Amen of limiting his public contacts with his old friend Fidel. We could have hoped for more but we got at least that.
Second, we should not forget that one thing is the artist and another the public persona. The more so when the artist is a creator. For all of his political foibles Garcia Marquez did not let his politics pervade his art, at least not in the 4 books mentioned above. That is why those books are great masterpieces, because they speak to all of us, and probably much, much more to us, sentient beings, than the brain washed Cuban or Chavista. I am sorry for those who have the bad taste of celebrate the passing of one of the best writers of our times. Educated people should be able to make the difference between the likes of Wagner and Garcia Marquez, and the scum that glorified non creators like Dudamel are. To give you a recent example of reprehensible artist.
No comments:
Post a Comment